One superintendent wouldn’t fit all districts

As a conversation piece about how to get some of the state’s 300 school districts to at least consolidate their administration, a new bill sponsored by Rep. Shari Weber, R-Herington, has merit. But she can’t seriously think the Legislature should limit each of the state’s 105 counties to one school superintendent, and bar the resulting countywide districts from hiring any deputy, assistant or associate superintendents. Weber said last week that she wants to “change the paradigm” of public education in Kansas in favor of kids and teachers. But trying to put all the schools in Wichita, Goddard, Maize, Derby and other county districts under one superintendent would be asking for trouble — and riots in the suburban streets.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

One Comment

  1. JWink
    Posted February 19, 2006 at 8:58 am | Permalink

    We could return to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when Kansas elected a state superintendent of public instruction. And each county elected a county superintendent of public instruction for a two year term.

    In Chase County with Cottonwood Falls as the county seat, back in about 1910, a lady named Anna E. Arnold was the long-time county superintendent of instruction. During that time, she wrote two textbooks, A HISTORY OF KANSAS and CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP, widely used for many years in Kansas schools.

    Rumor was she was a friend of the president of the Santa Fe Railroad that passed through the neighboring town of Strong City. Perhaps he helped her to get a pass to travel back and forth to Topeka on those old coal burning Santa Fe passenger trains to gather information for her text books.

    Last time I looked, her former house, now a vacant deteriorated farm house still stands like a ghostly sentinel in a grove of elm and cottonwood trees on the west edge of Cottonwood Falls.